(I succeeded in my PIP goals so they were forced to rate me Meets Expectations for that period. But after that if you get another Needs Improvement they can fire you without another PIP, so guess what. When I was sure this was going to happen, I quit because I had another job lined up (thanks to the timescale on which PIPs play out) and I like being able to say I wasn't fired. They had no problem letting me stay long enough to collect my quarterly vesting, but I'm curious how much money I left on the table nevertheless.)
Yes, there was a severance of sorts - They gave me about a month "off" at the end where I was technically employed but no longer there. I took this as an option instead of going on a PIP, after my boss had literally given me nothing to do for a quarter. Before that, things had been great - Exceeds expectations or better on every review until my team was dissolved under me and I had to find a new team on short notice.
You only ever had positive reviews in the formal cycle? That is a real shame.
Was finding another team ever offered as an option (other than on a PIP)?
The major difference I see is large corporations have a certain amount of randomness where entire products will get cancelled (its not just Google), internal re-orgs, appease the shareholders layoffs, or political in-fighting happens and someone "wins" and people get let go.
At a smaller company in an engineering dept of ~150 you know what most teams do and might know someone on each team. There is less random acts of large company that occur. Sure if business is bad, stuff is going to happen but that is usually something you can see coming.
I don't have any real knowledge about severances, but there's usually something for the first round of layoffs, and you might have an option of taking your PIP timeframe without being in the office, like the sibling poster mentioned.